“Obey God.” This is a phrase I hear from uber-religious people… friends, family, and strangers. But I don’t understand it.

There is evil in the world. Bad things happen to good people. That’s a fact. And the justification I have repeatedly heard — even from my own minister when I was younger — was that people can do bad things because God gave us free will. Having faith would be meaningless if we didn’t have free-will… it would all just be a puppet show.

So if we have free-will, to try to live the best life we can… then what is the benefit in “Obeying God”? I can get behind ‘try to follow these general good ideals’, but ‘obey god’ sounds more like an irrevocable checklist.

If you really think you’re gonna be judged at the end… I would rather be judged for something I created, than for how well I memorized the textbook.